


Running Out of Time

by samiraxlula



Series: Life is Like an Hourglass [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Detective Comics (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Adopted Jason Todd, Age Regression/De-Aging, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Depression, Dubious Morality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Jason Todd Has Mental Health Issues, Personal Growth, Pre-Robin Jason Todd, Realization, nothing is fixed but something is on the mend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24089881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samiraxlula/pseuds/samiraxlula
Summary: Currently in the middle of training to become Robin, Bruce discovers that something is very off about Jason and he decides to get to the bottom of it.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Series: Life is Like an Hourglass [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1723129
Comments: 36
Kudos: 244





	1. Escaping My Head

Enacting a somersault in a nimble attempt to create separation from his opponent, Jason finds himself being pushed into a defensive position to protect himself from the array of attacks being directed towards him.

He feels himself growing weary as the fight stretched on, making him curse the smaller form that did not allow him to utilize his full capabilities and become overpowered easily. Understanding theory was one thing, but if it was unusable in practicality then all his years spent training around the world felt pointless now.

Disliking the defensive role for himself, he instead charges and vaults the larger and heavier assailant, hooking his left arm at the same time, attempting to slam the back of the man’s head against the ground.

This proved to be a misstep, however, and earned him a solid punch straight to the face, blood beginning to trickle down his nose and mouth.

His opponent immediately froze, reaching a hand out to apologize.

“I’m sorry, Jaylad. Maybe I was being too—”

“It was my mistake. Again.”

“Jas—”

“ _Again_.”

Wiping the blood off with the back of his hand, Jason’s unflinching expression while completely disregarding that he had blood running down his face surprised Bruce enough for it to be visible on his face. 

They had been training non-stop for the hour down on the mats in the cave as Bruce had recently begun to increase the intensity of his three-months-in Robin training.

“I think we’ve trained enough for today.” Bruce’s voice was suddenly softer and more placating in tone, which annoyed Jason to a great extent.

“You did good.” He praised as he stepped off the mats to toss Jason a fresh white towel which the boy pressed against his face to wipe some of the sweat. “It helps that you pick things up quickly.”

_Normally, sure. But I’ve already been trained at this ‘til it was instinct._

As Jason didn’t vocalize these thoughts, he simply took the compliment outwardly, displaying a pleased expression. It hadn’t taken much to make that look when he was younger. Bit of affection and praise and his younger self would have followed you around like a puppy.

He hated his younger self sometimes.

The bleeding had already stopped after he sat with his head down for a few minutes, and since Jason was feeling particularly vindictive that day, he naturally decided to press into one of Bruce’s sore spots.

“So I guess Dick’s not visiting anymore these days.”

Not having showed up on his and Alfred’s shared birthday last weekend was sort of the proof in that, even if the golden boy did give his butler-parent a call and asked for the phone to be passed to Jason to wish him a happy birthday as well. 

Bruce only got the silent treatment, which was wonderful to see.

“Dick’s priorities are leading the Titans now. Between that and settling into Manhattan as Nightwing, I don’t see him coming home often, no.”

“Shame. I’m gonna go hit the showers.”

As Jason walked off, rubbing his chin absentmindedly, Bruce carried on his own training regiment — whilst his eyes zone off following his newly adopted son going up the stone steps leading to the Manor upstairs.

He had begun noticing something was off with Jason these past few days. 

Though the boy was usually quite good at keeping his cards close to the chest, there had been some oddities as of late that Bruce was determined to get to the bottom of. 

Perhaps he’d bring up his concerns with Alfred later.

*

Stepping out of the shower and wrapping a towel around himself, Jason scrunched his wet curls to get rid of some of the dripping water.

As he towelled the rest of himself off and began pulling on his clean clothing, he paused after catching a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. Normally he tried not to look at his own reflection as much as possible, especially post-resurrection when he’d had startling lazarus green eyes and a prominent autopsy scar on his chest.

But it was stranger still to see his younger self staring back at him, with his innocent blue eyes and malnutritioned frame. No longer were his battle scars and stretch marks present but were instead replaced with small bones visible underneath his skin and childish freckles crossing his nose.

Playing with the curls that rested on his forehead, Jason found himself surprised to even be missing the white tuft of hair he used to have.

He pointedly didn’t look down further to his _neck_ , however, as he quickly got dressed in a hurried shuffle to cover his younger form and leave the bathroom, opening the door to his bedroom suite.

It was now mid-August and Jason's eleventh birthday had come and gone. It had proven to be one of the most difficult performances Jason had pulled off since coming back right next to the show he pulled when Bruce had asked to adopt him.

Now _that_ required acting chops.

What Jason could admit and freely show to being more excited about was the new school year fast approaching in September.

Although he knew it’d feel like being in kindergarten again for him, it had been years since he’d been in school and Jason was genuinely thrilled when Alfred had taken him back-to-school shopping.

He had placed his schoolbag and all the supplies in his room carefully, showing them great attention to the older adults’ amusement. But this was the one thing he didn’t care or need to put on a mask for since whether he was actually eleven or not, Jason would always be excited for school.

He’d always hated that he never had the chance to graduate high-school before he was murdered the first time.

It’d also hopefully prove to be a vacation from the eventful but painfully-long six months it had been with his ‘swapping,’ kidnapping, adopting and then killing. He needed a break.

Settling down comfortably on the couch in the sitting room while his hair air dried, Jason picked up the remote to turn on the rarely-touched television.

Even as a kid who had been awe-struck by the grandeur of the Manor and everything in it, he hadn’t held much care in the television that was placed in his sitting room. He’d been more of a book lover all his life and became an immediate fixture in the library upon his arrival.

Turning on the television and flicking through the channels without much care, the adult-in-a-child’s-body watched without much investment in the goings-on of the world around him, mainly due to knowing how it’d all turn out in the end.

G. Godfrey was being interviewed by Jack Ryder on GCN and going off on one of his spiels against superheroes, making Jason cringe in remembrance of his working for Darkseid and the trouble he incited and another national news channel talking about the Titans having murdered Brother Blood, which later would turn out to be a scheme concocted by the cult.

It seemed there was nothing good going on. 

_“Batman: Murderer?”_

The voice of the newscaster came through the sound system, catching Jason’s interest. “In an indefensible act of vigilantism, a simple mugging has turned into a multiple murder late last night—”

_Huh. To think I’d forgotten about Tommy Carma._

Jason’s lip twitched in amusement as he watched the broadcast and reminisced over the first time these events had unfolded, swinging his legs that didn’t yet touch the ground.

Thomas Carma was someone who had appeared right after his adoption, having been a former marine turned youngest detective in the GCPD and was famous for his violent behaviour towards criminals.

He had also been lesser known for his unhealthy _obsession_ with Batman. The culmination of both these traits had unfortunately gotten hitmen sent after his wife and daughter named ‘Robin,’ who had been blown up in their car after he had arrested certain ‘untouchable’ mobsters.

Poor Tommy had snapped after that and became delusional in his war on crime, and more specifically the mobsters and hitmen who had murdered his family, channelling that into becoming a faux murdering Batman.

But this was all future information that wasn’t even known to Bruce yet.

_You know, it’s actually quite funny that both Dick in the Titans and Bruce as Batman are being falsely accused of murder at the same time right now._

Jason let out a childish giggle that he immediately clamped his hand over his mouth to cover in embarrassment. He was not going to make that sound again. He was still a grown man, damnit. 

There was a smart knock at the door before Alfred walked into the room and bristled in annoyance at the misinformed broadcast content while displaying a platter of sandwiches to Jason.

“Master Bruce is refusing to eat yet again with the latest events unfolding outside.” The butler nodded towards the television. “I thought perhaps you might appreciate these instead.”

And normally Jason would, but all he did was rub his jaw again and gaze at the platter with a deep-longing regret.

“Umm...maybe later, Alfred.” The damp-haired boy brought his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them as he averted his eyes from the butler, to the man’s surprise.

Having raised a suspicious eyebrow unseen to the child, Alfred began to draw the same conclusions Bruce had brought up with him.

“Master Jason, are you perhaps not feeling well?”

“What?” The question seemed to startle Jason enough to look up at the Englishman. “No, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“It is hardly like you to dismiss the idea of food.” 

“I’m...just not hungry right now, that’s all.”

This seemed to make Alfred even more suspicious, making Jason shrink a bit under the butler’s searching look before he sighed disappointedly and put the lid back on the platter of sandwiches.

“Very well then, young Master. Perhaps your appetite will return to you in time for dinner.”

Though he doubted it, Alfred left the room with the food and Jason turned back to the television. He’d keep an eye on the fake Batman case but couldn’t afford to try another scheme in involving himself. 

There were still random members of the Faceless Society on the streets despite their leader being dead by Jason’s own hand, unofficially of course, and while he knew his own involvement was a safe secret, he wasn’t about to try testing Bruce’s title as the ‘World’s Greatest Detective.’

So for now...he would watch and wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word count has gotten shorter it seems. My apologies. I'll try to do better.


	2. I Rose From the Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe I wrote chapter 1, 2 and most of 4 but not 3? I actually have no idea what to do there so I think that's why these two chapters are kinda short. I need to think up some on-the-fly plotting now...this is a chaotic process of writing.

At breakfast the next morning, the newspaper was prominently displayed on the table with its bold headline of ‘Batman: Wanted for Murder!’

It was hard to tell how seriously most of the city would take it considering the Bat was more of an alligator-in-the-sewer type myth in the neon yet gloomy city. Aside from the police and criminals, there was no publically available evidence to prove Gotham’s dark knight legend except for the bat-signal, which was itself rumoured to be a ploy of the Commissioner's to lower crime rates.

The average citizen populace was divided on this aspect of their city, which Jason always found funny considering a woman who could control plants and a man who was basically just clay was more normal to have terrorizing their lives.

How he loved this city sometimes.

“There, Alfred.” Bruce was talking about the article with his equally upset butler. “Howard Despond. He’s the husband of one of the women murdered by those muggers, who were in turned killed by this fake Batman character.”

Jason took a small bite of his omelette before setting his fork done, a pain in his mouth preventing him from eating further. This was something Alfred immediately noticed and commented upon.

“Master Jason, you haven’t eaten a thing. Shall I prepare something else?”

“No! It’s fine, really.” The eleven-year-old rubbed at his jaw unthinkingly, which took Bruce’s attention away from the article for a minute as well.

“See?” Poking at his plate before taking another bite of the omelette, Jason tasted something faintly sweet in his mouth after a crunching sound. 

Taking the napkin Bruce passed him, Jason pressed it against his mouth and spat out whatever was so hard he had bitten into. Looking down at the white paper, his eyes widened some to see a pre-molar tooth there.

“I thought as much.” Bruce seemed amused by the development as did Alfred, who took the napkin and omelette both from Jason and disappeared off into the kitchen to do whatever with the baby tooth.

Jason was only surprised by it, not expecting to have lost a tooth at his age, before he realized yet again that he _was_ psychically an eleven-year-old who should have a few back teeth left to lose.

“Here, eat this instead.” Sliding him an untouched bowl of porridge to eat, Bruce resumed reading the article while buttering his own slice of toast.

Settling back into their comfortable quiet eating, Jason took small bites of the oatmeal after drinking his glass of water to get rid of the bloody taste. Peering up and to the side at his unhappily admitted adoptive parent, the former Red Hood noticed something.

Although his face was clearly displeased with the events going on outside, Bruce was also visibly struggling to be up and _awake_ this early in the morning.

However, despite the recent nature of this conclusion he had drawn, Jason couldn’t remember a time when Bruce _hadn’t_ had breakfast with him in the past unless the older man had a concussion or was otherwise bed-ridden. 

It wasn’t easy to get up for breakfast even when he didn’t have any Wayne Enterprise meetings to go to, considering his nocturnal character, so why did he bother?

“I’m going to head out later to talk with Howard Despond.” Bruce informed him of his plans for the daylight hours, though Jason was still pondering out the answer to his own question.

“The Wayne Foundation just opened a victim’s aid program so he might be willing to talk with me because of that. I can’t let this body count continue to rise, even if it wasn’t under my name.”

“Okay.” Jason nodded. “I’ll just...be here, I guess.”

Finishing up their breakfast, Bruce stood to go and Jason decided to just throw the question at him and get his curiosity out of the way before it started to really bother him.

“Why do you always get up so early?”

“What do you mean?” Putting his hands on the back of the chair he was sitting on a few seconds before, Bruce paused to give the child a questioning look.

“You’re not a morning person but you’re always up when I am.”

“Ah, that.” Bruce gave a still-tired but easy laugh as he reached over to ruffle Jason’s curls. “Is it so bad for me to just want to have breakfast with my son?”

*

Jason suddenly felt as drained and mentally-exhausted as Bruce should have been in the morning as he walked down the quiet halls of the Manor, still emotionally reeling from one simple word which he knew was beyond pathetic.

The portraits of previously also dead Waynes’ looked down on him from where they were hung on the walls as the boy sighed, air escaping from his once-decomposing lungs. He was beginning to feel somewhat like a ghost himself in these halls.

He hated how easy it was to play on his emotions and it was something his many ‘specialized’ teachers over the years had pointed out, saying that the trait made him weak and stupid. He knew they were telling him the nothing but the cold hard truth, but he stilled wished it weren’t a fact of his life.

He wished he could just turn off his feelings sometimes. 

It’d do a hell of a lot more for achieving his goals too then just deciding to go through with being Robin again, as many benefits as that held such as giving him freer reign to run about Gotham and be close enough to Batman to trip him up. 

The role of Robin was the ultimate trust Bruce could give, to fight and bleed by his side in the very mission he had devoted his life towards. And that is why Jason did it again...and again.

Looking up at a medieval suit of plate armour, Jason’s blue eyes would have seemed so very age-weary to anyone who could have seen him in that lonesome moment, reflecting in the polished metal. 

He wondered when the last time was he would’ve actually admitted to being Bruce’s son without doubting it in the slightest. 

It was probably when he was newly seventeen in France and on the run from the assassin’s Ra’s had sent after him, having been fresh out of the Lazarus pit and not understanding anything that was going on around him except that he had to go _home_ to his family.

It would have turned into one of the worst nights of his life all because of a simple newspaper headline and the storm it brought in with it.

_“He wouldn’t...he wouldn’t do this to me.”_

_Heartwrenching sobs seemed to be ripping out from the boy’s heart as he curled himself into a fetal position on the floor, salty tears streaming down his face._

_It was difficult to tell whether his screams were of anger or pain but that was all he seemed to be able to get out while still on the floor, newspapers laying around him._

_“Bruce would never do this to me.”_

_But he had. His death hadn’t mattered to him one bit. He did nothing after he was murdered by that sick death-worshipping, psychotic piece of filth. Nothing._

_Not bothering to collect the sharpened shards of his broken heart, Jason sat up on the floor, his mind numb from either the sheer amount of crying he’d just done or the green haze that seemed to be clouding his vision._

_It didn’t matter._

_He knew what needed to be done now._

_He was going to do what he wouldn’t. And while he was at it, he was going to make him suffer as he had, until he was all alone and fully understood his pain before he inflicted it back onto him twice fold._

_He was going to be a better him._

Turning his face from the reflection cast in the armour, Jason wondered how he could feel the way he did when he knew and remembered full well all that Bruce had done to him and the pain he had caused.

Using his tongue absentmindedly to feel the now-empty space in his teeth, battle-weariness washed over him again as he thought back to his last fight with Batman as the Red Hood. He’d already shouted at him everything that he’d done wrong and cried his heart out to him to no avail.

He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t even think about it let alone go down that path again. It’d only lead too—

Jason's hand rubbed along the side of his neck. 

He wasn’t Bruce’s son. No matter what any legal papers or the man himself said. He couldn’t allow anything to get in the way of his own justice this time, especially now that he knew Bruce would never have given it to him.

He wasn't going to die young. He wasn't going to never graduate high-school. And he wasn't going to be Bruce's martyr ever again.

“As long as I win in the end...” He swore to himself as he walked on down the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: I'd just like to throw out there that Jason only has his perspective of 'future-past' events. This makes him something of an unreliable narrator admittedly.


	3. Call Me Lazarus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason goes through a bout of depression (unknowingly triggered by Bruce).

This was the second time Jason had deigned to visit the cemetery. 

The cover was that he was just visiting his late ~~step~~ -mother Catherine on the anniversary of her death and wanted to talk with her alone for a while. Which he did do, of course, laying a bouquet of flowers against her simple grave marker as the weak summer sun peeked through the many grey clouds.

Now that he was older, he could recognize that perhaps she wasn’t the shining saint that his younger self stubbornly painted her as but was a woman who dealt with an extreme drug addiction and made Jason go through it right along with her, having had to drop out of elementary school to become her main caregiver. 

Up until her very end, she had loved those drugs that made her forget all her pain more than she did him and that hurt to come to terms with. Nonetheless, she was still the only mother he would recognize and he would treat her with that respect.

Alfred was waiting out in the car as the boy strolled through the rows upon rows of tombstones, heading towards his real main objective in visiting the massive cemetery.

Making a detour and walking amidst the many generations past, Jason made it to the more recent burials of a certain family’s plot where the twin memorials of Thomas and Martha Wayne were erected.

Where he stopped, however, was an empty patch of grass only a few feet away from them.

There was no towering angel or stone carved with a child’s name on it at this point in time, but it was exactly where Jason was to be buried some four years into the future-past.

_What am I doing here?_

Though it wasn’t a question that Jason thought of often, choosing to ignore the mystery of his life and resurrection; which frustrated the respective Al Ghul’s greatly; in favour of his own vengeance, it was something that nagged at his mind now of all times.

While he was raised Catholic, he didn’t really believe it was any higher power like God that had returned him to this miserable life for the second time now. Were the fates just playing around with him instead? Talia had always been big on her ‘fate and destiny’ theories.

He didn’t know. 

He didn’t know if he really cared either.

Getting down onto his knees and then twisting to fall onto his back in the very spot he had been laid to permanent rest before, Jason looked up at the cloud formations while folding his hands together on his chest and chuckled pathetically upon making a long _‘haa’_ sound.

_Death was so much simpler._

He had already spent four years of his second life devoted entirely to his anger and feelings of injustice, training and learning all the forms of mortal combat Batman refused to teach but this was his third life now and he was beyond _tired_ of it all. 

Maybe this depressive funk was just because he was forced into living his old life all over again and gave him the time to look around and really take in all that he’d once had and lost. 

The cruelties of fate, if you would.

But was there even a life for him to have beyond vengeance, or was all that he was brought back to do was avenge himself since no one else would?

He supposed that at some point one was supposed to put the past in the past, but was that time now? He didn’t know.

What Jason did know though was that his anger went beyond acceptable boundaries at times. He could accept that, but it also gave him a purpose he _needed_. Something to focus on and pull himself out of his own madness, which was as suffocating as the dense, breathless dread he had felt trapped in that coffin underneath the ground he lay on now.

All this atop of his younger body having zero emotional control and making him tear up all the time, which was concerning even himself. Did he really cry this much as a kid or was his younger body just not taking well to his new mental stress? 

Well, nothing was really odd anymore.

“This body needs a cigarette.” Jason huffed before sitting up in one quick movement akin to a sit-up.

Moving like a dead man, or a man exhausted with life, anyway, he trudged back to the car where Alfred was waiting. 

As he walked along the path, the child-in-appearance found himself surprised enough by the scene of Batman in front of two further down graves, quickly sliding behind a large oak tree to give himself cover from being spotted and going completely silent in the way he was trained.

He knew that it wasn't Bruce behind this particular cowl, however, as the man’s stance was completely off from the original and the grass had barely grown over the newly dug graves he stood in front of belonging to the six-year-old Robin Carma and her mother.

Watching the man for a silent while, Jason felt something almost akin to pity grow for the fake. Maybe he was still feeling bad for himself and everything else right in that moment but all Tommy Carma really was to anyone was only a delusional man who had lost his family and thought he was Batman.

It wouldn’t hurt to help the poor sap out, he thought, bleeding heart that he was at times.

Besides, Jason didn’t hate his approach on killing criminals either. And since he knew the man was still going to end up in Arkham at the end of the day, he didn’t feel too badly about helping the guy find his family’s murderer first.

And as a former questionable crime boss and ex-street kid vigilante, he did hold the upper hand in situations that called for such expertise relating to the criminal underworld.

His footsteps made no sound as he popped up behind the man and bent forward to be in his field of vision, waving hello cheerfully with a bright smile.

The sudden appearance of the small child startled the faux Batman enough to jolt, his fighting instincts sending his arm back flying which Jason merely grabbed the wrist of and flipped him over his shoulder, slamming him onto the grass.

“Relax, buddy. I only want to help you.” 

Smiling pleasantly down over the stunned man on the ground, who did happen to be a former marine and golden gloves boxer, the boy cocked his head to the side like a robin. 

“I’ll tell you where you can find the hitman who killed your family and you can do something for me in turn. Okay?”

*

“Sorry, I took so long, Alfred.” Jason apologized as he clambered back into the car where Alfred was patiently reading a book he closed and placed back in the glove compartment. 

“Quite alright, my boy.” The Englishman smiled at him from the rearview mirror, starting the engine and pulling out of the cemetery’s parking lot. “I trust you had a meaningful time?”

Jason blinked once, remembering the three graves he visited with an odd sensitivity in his blues that Alfred wondered about, before turning to rest his face in his hand and look out the window at the passing scenery. 

“Very.”

He should have given Carma enough of a head start on the real Batman in finding his family’s hitman, who was currently in police custody, and offing him.

Tommy hadn’t gotten that opportunity the first time around on account of Bruce figuring out his specific target first and stopping him ‘in time,’ but Jason had information that neither were privy to at this moment in time and he would use it to help out some other broken man this time.

All he had to do was show up dressed as Robin ‘to the rescue,’ like he had done the first time but he’d make sure the timing of everyone involved allowed Carma to enact his own justice first.

_Better luck next time, huh. We’ll have to see about that._

Closing his eyes and drifting off to the steady purr of the car’s engine, Alfred changed the turn signal to switch lanes smoothly and drive along the roads home.


	4. Risen

They say that the ideal nap is only ten minutes long, but it gets tough to stick to that standard in their particular line of work. 

Most of the bat-clan didn’t get a chance to get through an entire cycle of sleep, so it was common to find them sleeping here and there, taking naps at the most random time and places.

It made Jason privately muse that the manor wasn’t much unlike an airport terminal as he later balanced on a flag pole protruding from the side of a building, overviewing the bustling summer night scene going on down below where a near-collision had the involved drivers honking loudly.

Alfred had gone to sleep an hour after Jason had supposedly fallen asleep in his own room, after which he had snuck down to the cave below, the various alarms, traps and sensors not meaning much to him as he stood in front of the new showcase set up for his uniform.

Taking it down and putting it on had been more difficult a feat than he’d thought it’d be.

He felt as if he couldn’t breathe in the suit. The last time he had worn it, despite the fact that it had been upgraded and in a different design at that point, he had been dead, bruised black and blue and burnt with a cracked open skull.

He’d never have that same _magic_ back that came the first time he’d donned it, having had nervously fiddled with the gloves and hoped to be just as good as his exalted predecessor before throwing on a bright, mischievous grin that seemed to come with the uniform and bounding out to show Bruce and Alfred who were waiting for him then.

Now the flickering neon lights of a strip club from across the street cast purple and gold artificial light on the street below but what Jason focused on was the rickety, partially boarded up motel a building over and across from his vantage point. 

It was where the police were keeping a certain mob hitman of interest hidden as he was due to testify before the grand jury tomorrow against his previous ‘employers.’ 

Hearing the sound of gunfire come from the building following a crashing entry through the glass, Jason waited out hidden in shadow for Carma to enact his vengeance, humming a low tune and drumming his hands on his knees to the song and scream that came when the hitman went flying out of the window and hit the ground with a sickening splat.

A victorious Batman was seen in the broken window, taking in the sight of the snuffer laying there on the ground. And this time a second Batman wasn’t in time to catch him first.

_Small victories for the psychos._

“What have you done?!” Came an angry growl from a just newly arrived dark figure on the ground, who looked up from the body after confirming its death.

Jason drew into himself though he already knew he wasn’t going to be spotted, waiting out to see how much further use he could get out of Carma with his end of the bargain to still uphold.

Having propelled down the side of the building to the alley below where the body had landed, the two Batmen faced each other, one real and the other not, equally fuming for different reasons but both claiming to be the genuine article.

Jason was obviously rooting for Carma, although he’d never actually win in a fight against Bruce so it felt more like he was just cheering for a child he knew was a lost cause anyway.

It didn’t stop him from almost cheering aloud as the imposter Batman picked up a crowbar that Jason had placed there for him as part of his end of their deal and raised it to hit Batman and send him to the ground.

“You haven’t lost a child! How could you possibly understand my pain!” Thomas Carma had beat him with the cold metal as Jason prayed for a concussion before taking his cue after a few good blows to swoop in and ‘save’ his mentor.

Apparently the sight of red, green and yellow made for a startling enough sight for both men to freeze, faux Batman in particular.

“Robin?” 

The name alone coming from his own mouth seemed to grip Carma in memories of his own late daughter with the same name, whose life had been taken from him in that car bomb. She had been such a sweet child—

_Crack._

Taking advantage of the situation, the real Batman sent a kick strong enough to knock the man into the side alley brick wall and render him unconscious before slumping down himself, blood running down from underneath his cowl which he didn’t bother to wipe off.

Running to him, Jason didn’t see a need to fake all that much concern in his expression with the way Bruce was sliding in and out of conscious clarity and with how dim the alleyway was, barely illuminated by the flickering neon signs and streetlights. 

“I should be angry with you for being out in that costume before you completed your training,” Bruce tried for a disoriented but disappointed look. “But I’ll settle on gratitude for now.”

The rumble of the batmobile pulled up to the front of the alley, it’s headlights allowing for more to be seen as Batman took his green gloved hand and patted it affectionately. 

Jason felt somewhat uncomfortable with the blatant affection Bruce seemed to be more open in showing his younger self considering how he was still essentially one of the many people in his life who had hurt him repeatedly without much remorse, but there was also a feeling of awe in the receiving such displays of caring.

Turning his face from the man who claimed to be his adoptive father, Jason bit his lip as he took in the door of the batmobile auto-opening for their entry. 

“The police’ll be here soon. We should get going.” Sliding an arm under Batman to help him up, he paused when Bruce shook his head.

“Need to... clear name…”

“Fine, we’ll wait in the car until the police arrive.”

Carma would be out long enough for the police to arrive and handcuff so all he did was press a sticky note onto his forehead signed ‘the real Batman and Robin.’

Though the man’s weight was a bit much for his smaller body to hold up, Jason managed to drag Bruce over and hoist him into the batmobile, now just waiting for the police to show up and have the real Batman’s identity cleared.

Looking down at the beaten-down man in the seat, Jason clenched his fist tight enough for his nails to draw blood were he not wearing gloves.

“Bruce…”

“Field names.”

“Did you ever…” there was a lengthy pause in between as the boy looked back towards the unconscious Carma. “Really think of me as your son?” 

Jason’s expression was tight and guarded behind his domino mask as the groggy Batman looked up at him with his white cowled lenses before gently placing a hand on his cheek.

“Did you ever doubt it?”

*

It would be so easy to kill him like this. To just get it all finally over with. The grudges, the pain and envy...the loneliness he felt deep inside. 

He should _kill_ him.

He should _hate_ him.

As Bruce laid there on the bed with his head wrapped with fresh white bandages done by Alfred, he seemed to be completely out of it as Jason observed him from the armchair beside him, the child’s expression shown to be complicated by the moonlight that shone into the room. 

There were so many things he hadn’t noticed when he was younger about Bruce. He wasn’t as perfect and reliable as his younger self was prone to thinking. In his six months being back, it was more than apparent to anyone that the man was a mess and could barely cling onto a guise of normalcy. 

But Bruce still took him in and wanted to care for him. Bruce _wanted_ to be close to him. Jason wasn’t blind enough to not be able to see that and on some shameful, secretive level, he wanted that too. But...how could he?

While this was the same man he once considered and called his father, he was also the same man responsible for killing Jason in the very end. He was the man who did nothing about his murder and was the man who replaced him before his body even had the time to fully decompose.

He was the man who _wondered_ how he could ever _doubt_ to being his son.

Jason felt like taking Bruce by the shoulders and shaking him violently in that very moment. 

_Just give me one good reason why I shouldn’t smash your skull in after what you’ve done to me._

The sound of a water droplet hitting Bruce’s comforter broke the dead silence and Jason felt his body begin to shake and his chin tremble like the small distressed child he appeared to be.

As salty tears dripped from his cheeks, something shifted against the covers and reached out to take hold of his hand gently.

Jason could only stare with swimming vision at the driftingly conscious man who still held his smaller hand while rubbing a thumb over his knuckles with blue eyes widened in surprise.

“You’re crying again.” Bruce’s words were slurred and mumbled from his concussion. “You cry too much. Don’t like it when you cry.”

“Yeah, well.” Jason sniffled and used his other hand to wipe his face. “It’s a healthy coping mechanism, alright.”

“Alright.”

“I just...I don’t understand, _dad—_ ” Jason choked off the sentence with a start as he quickly turned his head away to look at the window, the heavy but silent tears resuming once more.

Why would he have said that word without meaning to? He hadn’t since that night in the warehouse, apologizing to a father who couldn’t make it in time.

“You’ll... figure... it out, Jay.” Bruce trailed off, though he did make an effort to squeeze his hand as firmly as he could in his condition.

The room went quiet again except for the sound of Jason attempting to stifle his tears but failing as he was slammed by another wave of emotion, washing away his defences in salt despite how hard he tried to mask his anger, loss and devastation. 

If he didn’t kill Bruce, what was he supposed to do with it all?

Feeling Bruce’s hand slip from his, Jason attempted to win his desperate battle with grief. 

Grief for the child he used to be, the child he was now and the child he would have to grow up being.

“Don’t...die yet, okay?” He whispered in such a low voice that anyone would have a hard time hearing, let alone the completely unconscious Bruce next to him as the sun began to rise outside.

_I don’t want you to die anymore._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so part iii wasn't my best work but it does mark 3/6 of the main storyline being complete now. I'm also planning some one-shots scattered throughout this timeline but we'll see when I can get some of those up.
> 
> Coming Up Next:
> 
> “Master Jason, I can hardly approve of this solo outing of yours.”  
> “Oh, my goodness gracious!”   
> “You’ll forgive me for doubting that.”  
> “You're just so damn delightful to be around, aren’t ya’.”


End file.
